


we lie in a bed of our own skin

by fated_addiction



Category: Tokyo Babylon, X/1999
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2012-07-25
Packaged: 2017-11-10 17:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Subaru wears the face of the Sakurazukamori. But the dead likes to speak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we lie in a bed of our own skin

**Author's Note:**

> Suddenly I am back to tormenting myself with a resurgence in CLAMP feelings. So here we are. With manga feels and spoilers.

Subaru dreams.

 

 

The construct of a dream is not for us to _know_ , Grandmother would say.

He hears a laugh. Hokuto. He smells the blossoms. He does not see them; the air waifs and remains unsettled. Seishirō, he tries and thinks.

“Odd, isn’t it?”

The girl appears to him just as she was. He cannot remember as anything but _the_ girl. He would call her a catalyst, but he cannot find himself able to be just as unkind as he should be. There is no such thing as credit as it is.

His mouth feels dry as it is. She settles in front of him. Her hair waves and falls, over her shoulders, over the short dress as her hands fold over her belly. 

“It’s been a long time,” she says shyly. “Hasn’t it?”

“What?” he says. He still smells the blossoms.

“Since you dreamed.” Her eyes are bright. He sees her brother in her. Kotori, he remembers. A smile catches at her mouth. “And yes, I’m dead,” she looks up, studying – air? He isn’t sure. “A lot of us are,” she says absently. “But we watch from different places, I suppose.”

“You’re not alone.” His mouth tightens. He shuffles his foot back, defensive. His hands crack and he thinks of his bones.

“No.” Kotori remains unmoved. “Nor is it safe,” she tells him, shrugging. Her brother’s name goes unsaid. “I suppose he’s watching me too.”

“Then why are you here?” he asks.

“You let me in.”

And that, there, unsettles him.

 

 

“I could have been many things,” she says, and settles into sit – he has taken to silence because it’s easier and those lessons, from long ago that makes him think of more frightening things, simpler things.

She seems older, brighter. He wonders if he could see Hokuto, would she be the same; his sister was always too much of force, too big for his head and sense of selfish. It made him envy her.

“We’re all too many things,” she says too. Then she laughs. The sound is strange, girlish. The hem of her dress is wet. It pushes into her hips and legs. His hands shift and crave the awareness of limbs.

Subaru blinks and settles to sit too. It’s not ground; it’s water. His legs sink and stretch. There is still a hole in his jeans.

“I guess – ” Kotori shakes her head, smiling “ – I guess my future … well, it doesn’t matter. I had a point too, you know.”

He scoffs. “Sure, whatever.”

She rolls her eyes, leaning over her knees. “I can’t decide who you remind me more of, onii-san or Kamui. That’s a terrible headache, Subaru-san.”

Subaru doesn’t like the familiarity of being a stranger.

“So then _why_ did you come?”

His eyes are dark. She remains unfazed. Subaru is reminded of his lessons again. They say that the spirit world is infinitely complex, more complex than the variations of mages and witches and priests and – _whatever_ name you decided to wear. He cannot call her a ghost, even though she is. She is just as much of a ghost as his sister is and now, at his own hand, Seishirō is. He can understand why they are not here to see him.

“You invited me,” she murmurs, and her hair sweeps across her eyes, hiding them. Kamui wears her well. Fuuma, past, _former_ , does not. No one is around to wonder what she could have been in all of this.

“Why?” he asks again, swallow.

“I don’t know,” she says. Her mouth twists and sighs. “You were lonely once,” she tells him. “But not anymore. You were resigned as well – still are, in fact. Maybe seeing those you love. Maybe you can’t handle that yet.”

“ _Yet_ ,” he spits and swallows. It curls at his throat. The blossom smell is overwhelming, sudden and sharp, curling too under his nose.

It picks at his throat. His hands rise and curl into his skin. He feels his nails scrape into the fabric of his gloves, over his skin. He coughs out, his head dropping into his knees. His eyes squeeze shut.

He hears her laugh and shudders.

“Calm down.”

His voice cracks. “Fuck _off _.” He struggles and thinks of his sister. “You know nothing,” he spits.__

“Your sister misses you too,” Kotori tells him, unfazed. His legs are cool. It’s water, he thinks again. It doesn’t rush.

“Why isn’t there anything else _here_?” he grinds out.

He smells. He feels. When he blinks, his vision cracks and his head is back in Tokyo, watching buildings slide and crack and fall.

“You mean anyone,” Kotori corrects, gently, and there are screams, hollow, soundless echoes seem to press into his head. He knows that they are there. He can feel the pressure of his duty, a long duty that has seemingly failed to keep him etched into a proper path – whatever that can mean.

“I invited _you_ in,” he bites.

“You endure your resignation because you feel like you deserve it.” His vision clears and Kotori is there, still sitting in the water. She looks sad. “You endure like Kamui endures and much like – ” her mouth changes, round and soft “ – much like my brother does, much like that boy, _the_ boy that still lives in that body. And really, would have you listened to the ones that you loved?”

“He’s not there anymore,” Subaru looks away. He notices now. He isn’t trying to be cruel.

His dreamscape takes shape. The water remains present and gray. It paints itself into a sky, blue but not blue, just a sullen sense of sky that does not move. He sees a petal next. Then another. His fingers dip into the water, but he cannot feel them. He remembers: the boy, a man, and a web of stories, all corpses warning them both.

“Maybe,” she shrugs. There is a laugh. Then there is another one. It’s the first or the second that is low and thick. “But he’s still my brother.”

“Does he talk to you?” he asks, tired now.

She laughs warmly. “No,” she says. “We still have nothing to say.” It seems too clear to be the truth. If she were his sister, the answer would be written too firmly into her face.

“And if you had survived – ”

A shadow frames her face. Her hair still covers her eyes. There are ripples in the water. They said she was a frail girl, too frail to survive any of this. But like so many others, Subaru cannot help but wonder what might have happened had she survived, had _Hokuto_ had survived, had he not inherited this and –

“Different and the same,” she finishes. She’s firm. “I’d like to think that I’d have some sort of control, my part in this, Subaru-san.” His real name seems to tip against her voice. He can almost imagine hearing her say _senpai_. “It’s rather silly and romantic,” she giggles then, too girlish, too soon, and much sharper. “I know, I know. But sometimes I can’t help it, can you?”

Subaru stares at her. His gloves are wet.

“No,” he says, and looks away.

 

 

They are standing again. The blossoms have gathered around her. Some spin; others fall and frame her hair. When he squints, he sees marks of feathers, small and fragile, picking at an unnamed breeze.

“He’ll ask about me,” she tells him.

“Will he?” Subaru’s throat feels dry. He thinks of Seishirō. His teeth sink into his lip and he swallows. “He seems a little too busy,” he mutters. He’s dry and cruel again. The world’s not dead yet.

Kotori’s mouth still curls. “You’ll see,” she says.

It hits him this way, a relative peace. Nothing about it is tangible or anywhere near real, but he still feels it. Kotori steps forward. Her fingers press against his arm. They drag and catch his wrist, tugging. The laughter happens again. He can almost see Hokuto grinning, _gushing_ over the smaller girl.

Kotori doesn’t tell him that she’s happy. It doesn’t even prompt him to ask. It’s his bones, again, rattled and tired.

“Be careful who you let in, Subaru-san,” the girl tells him.

It might be closest to a warning.

His eyes open slowly at first.

 

 

He stands next to the throne, or what's left of it. The blood is dry. His fingers sleep and twitch with need. Kamui – or Fuuma, today, is pressed, elbows to his knees, watching the skyline. He looks too large to be just a boy. The lights swallow away from the buildings.

“Your sister says hello,” he says.

The man in front of him shifts. Or flinches. He can hear Kamui’s sigh in his head.

Subaru thinks he is watching a stranger. Seishirō would have been amused.

Somewhere in there is the truth.


End file.
